Lord knows this is already a busy summer. Between heat waves and Trump indictments there is no shortage of targets if you want to worry about the fate of the planet and the fate of American democracy.
Instead of going for the big issues, I want to focus on something that has been flying under the radar for years: the growing involvement of the United States in training and arming militaries in Africa. In the guise of fighting terrorists, the Pentagon and the CIA have been dragging us ever deeper into military operations and political instability in Africa, accelerating both problems as we go.
For the past two decades, both Democratic and Republican administrations have militarized our relationship with Africa, stimulated the growth of terrorist organizations, and weakened governments from Somalia to Burkina Faso. Today, US relations with too many African countries have been militarized, creating a quagmire of our own making. The coup in Niger last week is just the latest example.
It all started with 9/11 and the Bush administration’s decision to engage in what it called the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), a decision that extended the American military, especially the Special Forces, across the globe. The GWOT also stimulated the militarization of the Central Intelligence Agency, which has become involved in global military actions of its own, largely using retired Special Forces officers.
In response to the call for a global fight with terrorists, the Defense Department created a whole batch of new programs to provide funds, equipment and training to dozens of countries. By the end of the decade, the Defense Department was spending more on this kind of intervention than the State Department, which had its own programs to assist foreign militaries. But State beefed up its activity as well, using private contractors and the military to provide more training and equipping, especially in Africa.
In short order, the entire federal government – including the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI – had built a massive, largely classified counter-terrorism military-intelligence-industrial complex to focus on the GWOT. And the military had created a new joint command, AFRICOM, focused specifically on Africa.
But….
Like the story of the sorcerer’s apprentice, where the apprentice meddles in things he does not understand, leading to more trouble, American military intervention in Africa has made things worse. Every time we chop off a terrorist, more step up to take their place. We lopped off Osama bin Ladin’s head, symbolically (buried him at sea in fact), supposedly crippling Al Qaeda, only to have ISIS – Daesh – spring up in its place and metastasize across the Middle East and into Africa. In 2011, we bombed the Muammar Gaddafi regime out of existence; the resulting chaos in Libya has stimulated a constant stream of terrorist groups to move south into the Sahel region.
We upped the ante, sending arms, support and training to Mali; only to have the Malian military and officers we trained seize power in a coup and, over time, kick out the French neo-colonial forces and replace them with the Wagner group. We have provided billions to stabilize Somalia, including establishing a US military base in Djibouti and conducting regular military raids on terrorist groups, leaving only chaos and instability behind. In Burkina Faso, a US-trained military officer was thrown out of power in 2022 in a coup led by another officer we might have trained.
In Niger, we thought it a nifty idea to establish a military base from which we could fly drones into southern Libya, Chad, Mali, Sudan to strike terrorists. We funneled more assistance dollars, trainers, and equipment to the Nigerien military, whose leader just removed the democratically elected president from office and invited the Wagner group in for support.
Through all of this, the military has continued to support and grow the Africa program, claiming they were fighting terrorists and supporting accountable governance. Security before governance, the US Africa Command argued. In the end, the entire African program has provided neither.
More than 10 years ago, I consulted with the State Department in an effort to turn this self-defeating policy around and emphasize what African countries really need: effective, efficient, accountable governance. This consultation followed work I had done with the World Bank to include the security sector in the Bank’s review of governance in assisted countries.
Maybe mine was mission impossible. Accountable governance must be home-grown; it cannot be imposed from the outside. But, at least, I argued, we might set up US assistance programs that incentivized accountable governance. I proposed to State that we create an incentive feature in US military assistance. Some part of US military assistance would be distributed to countries who measured up to good governance criteria. Criteria like publicly disclosing military spending, providing legislatures with data and the power to carry out oversight on military spending, a free press with the ability to question and report on military activities. All things that could strengthen governance capacity over the military sector. I was told the proposal made it into State Department budget request to the White House, but for undetermined reasons, the Office of Management and Budget (my former employer) rejected the proposal and it was stillborn.
Now, we have a new justification to continue this Keystone Cop operation in Africa: Russia and China. Putin and the Wagner group have seized the chaos to become “besties” with the military regimes emerging across the region. The Wagner Group is not going to end the terrorist threat, any more than they will defeat the Ukrainians on the field. Their presence in Africa is just another round of outsiders taking advantage of weak governance in Africa, following colonialism, American expansion and “good intentions.” Lurking back there behind Russia, China is being portrayed as the big threat.
Every intervenor will pay the price. Military forces will grow; civilian governance will disappear. The new justification for US military intervention is, in reality, only another opportunity for new imperial intervenors and military autocrats to steal African assets, dooming both economic growth and stable governance in the continent. A “security first” policy simply stimulates chaos and dictatorship.
Bluntly, militarizing our Africa policy has failed. Continuing down this road will lead only to more terrorists, less accountable governance, more political instability, more suffering, and more demands for more training and equipping and US military deployments to Africa.
We are, indeed, our own worst enemy.
We just don't learn...
Brilliant analysis, as always. Thank you for providing the history of U.S. involvement and reminding us how ineffective U.S. policy in Africa has been since at least 9/11. In fact, how counterproductive it has been. What to do now. . .